Pilloried for her politically incorrect views, University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax asks if it’s still possible to have substantive arguments about divisive issues.

ILLUSTRATION: JOHN CUNEO

By Amy Wax

Feb. 16, 2018 9:51 a.m. ET

There is a lot of abstract talk these days on American college campuses about free speech and the values of free inquiry, with lip service paid to expansive notions of free expression and the marketplace of ideas. What I’ve learned through my recent experience of writing a controversial op-ed is that most of this talk is not worth much. It is only when people are confronted with speech they don’t like that we see whether these abstractions are real to them.

Too few Americans are qualified for the jobs available. Male working-age labor-force participation is at Depression-era lows. Opioid abuse is widespread. Homicidal violence plagues inner cities. Almost half of all children are born out of wedlock, and even more are raised by single mothers. Many college students lack basic skills, and high school students rank below those from two dozen other countries.

We then discussed the “cultural script”—a list of behavioral norms—that was almost universally endorsed between the end of World War II and the mid-1960s:

Get married before you have children and strive to stay married for their sake. Get the education you need for gainful employment, work hard and avoid idleness. Go the extra mile for your employer or client. Be a patriot, ready to serve the country. Be neighborly, civic-minded and charitable. Avoid coarse language in public. Be respectful of authority. Eschew substance abuse and crime.

These norms defined a concept of adult responsibility that was, we wrote, “a major contributor to the productivity, educational gains and social coherence of that period.” The fact that the “bourgeois culture” these norms embodied has broken down since the 1960s, we argued, largely explains today’s social pathologies—and re-embracing that culture would go a long way toward addressing those pathologies.

In what became the most controversial passage, we pointed out that some cultures are less suited to preparing people to be productive citizens in a modern technological society, and we gave examples:

The culture of the Plains Indians was designed for nomadic hunters, but is not suited to a First World, 21st-century environment. Nor are the single-parent, antisocial habits prevalent among some working-class whites; the anti-‘acting white’ rap culture of inner-city blacks; the anti-assimilation ideas gaining ground among some Hispanic immigrants.

The author lecturing at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.PHOTO: WILL FIGG FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

The reactions to this piece raise the question of how unorthodox opinions should be dealt with in academia—and in American society at large. It is well documented that American universities today are dominated, more than ever before, by academics on the left end of the political spectrum. How should these academics handle opinions that depart, even quite sharply, from their “politically correct” views?

The proper response would be to engage in reasoned debate—to attempt to explain, using logic, evidence, facts and substantive arguments, why those opinions are wrong. This kind of civil discourse is obviously important at law schools like mine, because law schools are dedicated to teaching students how to think about and argue all sides of a question. But academic institutions in general should also be places where people are free to think and reason about important questions that affect our society and our way of life—something not possible in today’s atmosphere of enforced orthodoxy.

What those of us in academia should certainly not do is engage in unreasoned speech: hurling slurs and epithets, name-calling, vilification and mindless labeling. Likewise, we should not reject the views of others without providing reasoned arguments. Yet these once common standards of practice have been violated repeatedly at my own and at other academic institutions in recent years, and we increasingly see this trend in society as well.

‘Hurling labels doesn’t enlighten, inform, edify or educate.’

One might respond that unreasoned slurs and outright condemnations are also speech and must be defended. My recent experience has caused me to rethink this position. In debating others, we should have higher standards. Of course one has the right to hurl labels like “racist,” “sexist” and “xenophobic”—but that doesn’t make it the right thing to do. Hurling such labels doesn’t enlighten, inform, edify or educate. Indeed, it undermines these goals by discouraging or stifling dissent.

So what happened after our op-ed was published last August? A raft of letters, statements and petitions from students and professors at my university and elsewhere condemned the piece as hate speech—racist, white supremacist, xenophobic, “heteropatriarchial,” etc. There were demands that I be removed from the classroom and from academic committees. None of these demands even purported to address our arguments in any serious or systematic way.

A response published in the Daily Pennsylvanian, our school newspaper, and signed by five of my Penn Law School colleagues, charged us with the sin of praising the 1950s—a decade when racial discrimination was openly practiced and opportunities for women were limited. I do not agree with the contention that because a past era is marked by benighted attitudes and practices—attitudes and practices we had acknowledged in our op-ed—it has nothing to teach us. But at least this response attempted to make an argument.

Free Speech: Colleges in the Crossfire | Moving Upstream

Free-speech debates have returned to college campuses, leaving students, faculty and administrations caught in the crosshairs. WSJ’s Jason Bellini goes back to class to see why some students have had it with free speech.

Not so an open letter published in the Daily Pennsylvanian and signed by 33 of my colleagues. This letter quoted random passages from the op-ed and from a subsequent interview I gave to the school newspaper, condemned both and categorically rejected all of my views. It then invited students, in effect, to monitor me and to report any “stereotyping and bias” they might experience or perceive. This letter contained no argument, no substance, no reasoning, no explanation whatsoever as to how our op-ed was in error.

We hear a lot of talk about role models—people to be emulated, who set a positive example for students and others. In my view, the 33 professors who signed this letter are anti-role models. To students and citizens alike I say: Don’t follow their lead by condemning people for their views without providing a reasoned argument. Reject their example. Not only are they failing to teach you the practice of civil discourse—the sine qua non of liberal education and democracy—they are sending the message that civil discourse is unnecessary. As Jonathan Haidt of New York University wrote in September on the website Heterodox Academy: “Every open letter you sign to condemn a colleague for his or her words brings us closer to a world in which academic disagreements are resolved by social force and political power, not by argumentation and persuasion.” Two signers of the open letter, Jonathan Klick and Jonah Gelbach, responded to Dr. Haidt’s post by writing pieces for Heterodox Academy that challenged the substance of the op-ed, with the latter adding a defense of the open letter’s condemnation of my views.

It is gratifying to note that the reader comments on the open letter were overwhelmingly critical. The letter has “no counterevidence,” one reader wrote, “no rebuttal to [Wax’s] arguments, just an assertion that she’s wrong…. This is embarrassing.” Another wrote: “This letter is an exercise in self-righteous virtue-signaling that utterly fails to deal with the argument so cogently presented by Wax and Alexander…. Note to parents, if you want your daughter or son to learn to address an argument, do not send them to Penn Law.”

The University of Pennsylvania Law School’s campus.PHOTO: WILL FIGG FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Shortly after the op-ed appeared, I ran into a colleague I hadn’t seen for a while and asked how his summer was going. He said he’d had a terrible summer, and in saying it he looked so serious I thought someone had died. He then explained that the reason his summer had been ruined was my op-ed, and he accused me of attacking and causing damage to the university, the students and the faculty. One of my left-leaning friends at Yale Law School found this story funny—who would have guessed an op-ed could ruin someone’s summer? But beyond the absurdity, note the choice of words: “attack” and “damage” are words one uses with one’s enemies, not colleagues or fellow citizens. At the very least, they are not words that encourage the expression of unpopular ideas. They reflect a spirit hostile to such ideas—indeed, a spirit that might seek to punish the expression of such ideas.

I had a similar conversation with a deputy dean. She had been unable to sign the open letter because of her official position, but she defended it as having been necessary. It needed to be written to get my attention, she told me, so that I would rethink what I had written and understand the hurt I had inflicted and the damage I had done, so that I wouldn’t do it again. The message was clear: Cease the heresy.

Only half of my colleagues in the law school signed the open letter. One who didn’t sent me a thoughtful and lawyerly email explaining how and why she disagreed with particular assertions in the op-ed. We had an amicable email exchange, from which I learned a lot—some of her points stick with me—and we remain cordial colleagues. That is how things should work.

Of the 33 who signed the letter, only one came to talk to me about it, and I am grateful for that. About three minutes into our conversation, he admitted that he didn’t categorically reject everything in the op-ed. Bourgeois values aren’t really so bad, he conceded, nor are all cultures equally worthy. Given that those were the main points of the op-ed, I asked him why he had signed the letter. His answer was that he didn’t like my saying, in my interview with the Daily Pennsylvanian, that the tendency of global migrants to flock to white European countries indicates the superiority of some cultures. This struck him as “code,” he said, for Nazism.

Well, let me state for the record that I don’t endorse Nazism!

Furthermore, the charge that a statement is “code” for something else, or a “dog whistle” of some kind—we frequently hear this charge leveled, even against people who are stating demonstrable facts—is unanswerable. It is like accusing a speaker of causing emotional injury or feelings of marginalization. Using this kind of language, which students have learned to do all too well, is intended to bring discussion and debate to a stop—to silence speech deemed unacceptable.

As Humpty Dumpty said to Alice, we can make words mean whatever we want them to mean. And who decides what is code for something else or what qualifies as a dog whistle? Those in power, of course—which in academia means the Left.

‘Students need the opposite of protection from diverse arguments and points of view.’

My 33 colleagues might have believed they were protecting students from being injured by harmful opinions, but they were doing those students no favors. Students need the opposite of protection from diverse arguments and points of view. They need exposure to them. This exposure will teach them how to think. As John Stuart Mill said, “He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.”

I have received more than 1,000 emails from around the country in the months since the op-ed was published—mostly supportive, some critical and for the most part thoughtful and respectful. Many expressed the thought, “You said what we are thinking but are afraid to say”—a sad commentary on the state of civil discourse in our society. Many urged me not to back down, cower or apologize. And I agree with them that dissenters apologize far too often.

As for Penn, the calls to action against me continue. My law school dean recently asked me to take a leave of absence next year and to cease teaching a mandatory first-year course. He explained that he was getting “pressure” to banish me for my unpopular views and hoped that my departure would quell the controversy. When I suggested that it was his job as a leader to resist such illiberal demands, he explained that he is a “pluralistic dean” who must listen to and accommodate “all sides.”

Democracy thrives on talk and debate, and it is not for the faint of heart. I read things every day in the media and hear things every day at my job that I find exasperating and insulting, including falsehoods and half-truths about people who are my friends. Offense and upset go with the territory; they are part and parcel of an open society. We should be teaching our young people to get used to these things, but instead we are teaching them the opposite.

Disliking, avoiding and shunning people who don’t share our politics is not good for our country. We live together, and we need to solve our problems together. It is also always possible that people we disagree with have something to offer, something to contribute, something to teach us. We ignore this at our peril. As Heather Mac Donald wrote in National Review about the controversy over our op-ed: “What if the progressive analysis of inequality is wrong…and a cultural analysis is closest to the truth? If confronting the need to change behavior is punishable ‘hate speech,’ then it is hard to see how the country can resolve its social problems.” In other words, we are at risk of being led astray by received opinion.

The American way is to conduct free and open debate in a civil manner. We should return to doing that on our college campuses and in our society at large.

—Ms. Wax is the Robert Mundheim Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. This essay, adapted from a speech she delivered in December, is reprinted by permission of Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College. The essay has been updated to note that two signers of the open letter condemning Ms. Wax’s op-ed later wrote substantive responses to her arguments.

Caucuses are precinct-level gatherings of voters that take place across Colorado. In 2018, the Republican caucuses will take place on Tuesday, March 6, at 7 pm.

What happens at the caucus?

Caucus-goers elect delegates and alternates to various assemblies. These can include county, state house, state senate, county ommission, state, congressional, and judicial assemblies. In some counties, caucus-goers elect delegates and alternates only to the county ssembly, and those delegates, in turn, elect delegates to the higher assemblies; in other counties, delegates to the higher assemblies are elected provisionally at the caucus and ratified at the county assembly.

Who can participate in the caucus?

To participate in the caucus, voters must have been registered for at least 60 days before the caucus date, or since January 8, 2018. Additionally, voters must have been residents of their current precinct for at least 30 days on the day of the caucus and registered to vote there for at least 29 days, or since February 5, 2018.

Where is my caucus meeting?

Each county party sets locations for its precinct caucuses in accordance with certain restrictions found in state statute. For your convenience, the Colorado Republican Committee has compiled all of those locations in one database. To find your caucus’ location, pre-register for the caucus on our website here: http://caucus.cologop.org/.

What time should I arrive at my caucus?

We recommend that you arrive at your caucus meeting by 6:30 pm. Any eligible Republican in line at 7 pm will be allowed to participate.

When and where are the various assemblies?

The date and location of each county assembly is set by the relevant county. The state assembly is Saturday, April 14, at the CU Boulder Coors Event Center. The date and location of other assemblies will be publicized as they become available.

What do delegates vote on at the assemblies?

At each assembly, delegates vote for candidates competing to be the nominee for various offices. At the state house assembly, delegates vote on candidates for state house, and at the state senate assembly, on candidates for state senate. At the county assembly, delegates vote on candidates for countywide office (such as Sheriff). At the county commission assembly, they vote on candidates for county commission. At the congressional assembly, delegates vote for candidates in congressional district races, including U.S. Representative and, some years, CU Regent and State Board of Education Member. At the state assembly, they vote for candidates in statewide races, such as Colorado Treasurer, Colorado Attorney General, Colorado Secretary of State, and Colorado Governor. At the judicial assembly, they vote for candidates for District Attorney.

What percentage of the vote do assembly candidates need to appear on the primary ballot?

Any candidate who receives 30% of the vote at his or her relevant assembly will automatically appear on the primary ballot. Any candidate who receives between 10% and 30% of the assembly vote may appear on the primary ballot provided that candidate submitted the requisite number of petition signatures by their due date, as determined by state law. Any candidate who receives less than 10% of the assembly vote may not appear on the primary ballot.

Is the caucus-assembly process the only way for candidates to reach the primary ballot?

No. In Colorado, state statute provides two routes for candidates to reach the primary ballot. One is the caucus-assembly process; the other is by gathering a certain number of petition signatures, which is determined by state law and varies depending on the race in question.

Is there a fee to be an assembly delegate or alternate?

Some assemblies charge delegates and alternates badge fees to offset the cost of hosting the assemblies. The state assembly delegate badge fee is $70 and the state assembly alternate badge fee is $60. Local assemblies’ badge fees vary and are set by the local district.

Will there be a straw poll at the caucus?

Individual precincts and counties are permitted to hold straw polls for Governor or any other race, but the state party will not be conducting a statewide straw poll. The state party does not conduct straw polls in non-presidential election years.

What is the effect of Propositions 107 and 108, which Colorado voters passed in 2016, on the caucus-assembly process?

This year, none. Proposition 107 created a presidential primary, but that won’t be relevant until 2020. Proposition 108 allows unaffiliated voters to participate in primaries, but that doesn’t affect the caucus-assembly process, because unaffiliated voters remain prohibited, per state law, from participating in the caucus or becoming a delegate to any of a party’s assemblies

Release the FISA Documents

The public deserves to see the full record on the FBI wiretap request.

Carter Page speaks with reporters following a day of questions from the House Intelligence Committee, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Nov. 2, 2017.PHOTO: J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE/ASSOCIATED PRESS

By The Editorial Board

Feb. 11, 2018 4:16 p.m. ET

President Trump Friday refused to declassify the Democratic memo on the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA), sending it back for negotiation with the Justice Department over intelligence sources and methods. This intelligence memo feud has become a frustrating political back and forth that needs to be trumped with more transparency.

Mr. Trump claimed in a tweet on Saturday that Democrats laid a trap with their 10-page memo, deliberately adding classified material that they knew “would have to be heavily redacted, whereupon they would blame the White House for lack of transparency.” That may be true, but it worked. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer quickly sent out a statement, “what is he hiding?”

Our sources say the Democratic memo—six pages longer than the GOP version released a week ago—has three main themes. The first argues for the credibility of Christopher Steele, the former British spy who compiled the dossier that the FBI used as the bulk of its justification for a wiretap on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. The second is that the FBI had good reason to surveil Mr. Page, and third is that the GOP memo is partisan.

None of this sounds like earth-shattering news since Democrats and their media echo chamber have been saying it for days. But keeping the memo classified plays into the Democratic narrative because the public can’t see the evidence behind their public claims. Let’s see what they’ve got.

The better remedy for these competing claims is to declassify all of the documents that House Intelligence Committee Members and staff used to compile the memos. This includes the full FBI application for a wiretap order from the FISA court—the original application and the three extensions. This would let the public see the full record and judge who is closer to the truth.

The FBI and Justice will claim this compromises intelligence sources and methods, but that’s what they said about the original GOP memo. It did not. They said the same about a letter from Senators Chuck Grassley and Lindsey Graham concerning Mr. Steele’s credibility. That also didn’t spill any essential secrets, though it did provide crucial information to help the public understand what happened.

Anything that did betray U.S. intelligence-gathering sources could be redacted, though the FBI has to be checked for trying to redact information that is merely embarrassing to the FBI, not damaging to national security.

The questions surrounding the legitimacy of a U.S. presidential election and potential abuse by the FBI are too important to public trust to keep mired in partisan claims based on a hidden public record. If that record vindicates Mr. Trump, as he claims, then he has further incentive to get everything out. Americans can handle the truth, and they deserve to see it.

]]>http://www.northsuburbanrepublicanforum.com/2018/02/release-the-fisa-documents/feed/0We trust parents to make the right decisions for their children regarding educationhttp://www.northsuburbanrepublicanforum.com/2018/02/we-trust-parents-to-make-the-right-decisions-for-their-children-regarding-education/
http://www.northsuburbanrepublicanforum.com/2018/02/we-trust-parents-to-make-the-right-decisions-for-their-children-regarding-education/#respondThu, 08 Feb 2018 00:01:47 +0000http://www.northsuburbanrepublicanforum.com/?p=9948
]]>http://www.northsuburbanrepublicanforum.com/2018/02/we-trust-parents-to-make-the-right-decisions-for-their-children-regarding-education/feed/0Join the NSRF this Saturday morning to hear “What’s Happening With Local & the State Board Of Education”http://www.northsuburbanrepublicanforum.com/2018/02/join-the-nsrf-this-saturday-morning-to-hear-whats-happening-with-local-the-state-board-of-education/
http://www.northsuburbanrepublicanforum.com/2018/02/join-the-nsrf-this-saturday-morning-to-hear-whats-happening-with-local-the-state-board-of-education/#respondWed, 07 Feb 2018 20:32:58 +0000http://www.northsuburbanrepublicanforum.com/?p=9934A big Thank You to our 3 speakers for sharing their insights and answering our members questions! What an informative meeting! If you weren’t there, you missed out.

It’s time to discuss education and who would know better than Board of Education members!

Class is in session starting at 9:00am this Saturday, February 10th at Amazing Grace Community Church, 541 E 99th Place in Thornton. Admission is $5 with a continental breakfast and beverage included.

You’ll learn what’s going in with teachers, graduation rates, Common Core, finances, if education has changed with Betsy DeVos at the Department of Education, and other items. And we always save room for questions at the end.

Our speakers will include Norm Jennings from the Adams 12 School Board, along with Roger Good, president of the Steamboat Springs School Board, and Pam Mazanec from the State Board of Education

Roger Good
Roger Good was past President of the School Board Member for Steamboat Springs District Re-2. Roger Good retired from a thirty-five-year career in the high tech industry where he had the opportunity to spend much if his career involved in international operations. He received his MBA degree from CSU and was recruited to serve on the advisory board to the business college in 1995. Since then, Roger has remained very active in education related activities for the past twenty years including serving on the Steamboat Springs granting organization that provides funding to multiple local school districts and community groups that support educational opportunities for k-12 students.
Currently Roger is a member of the BEST (Building Excellent Schools Today )Board and he is also a member of the PACE (Professional Association of Colorado Educators) a nonunion based association for educators.http://www.sssd.k12.co.us/

Adams 12 Five Star Schools is the policy-making body for the district. Its powers and duties are established in state law. The Board is comprised of five members that are elected to four-year, staggered terms. Board members may serve two consecutive terms. The district has a director district plan of representation which requires that school board members reside in a specific geographic area within the Five Star School District boundaries. Board members are elected by a vote of the electors of the entire school district. The district’s Boundary Locator provides information regarding director districts for specific addresses. Board members are not paid; they give freely of their time to serve the Five Star community.https://www.adams12.org/departments/board-education

Pam Mazanec (R)

Pam Mazanec was elected to the State Board of Education for the 4th Congressional District commencing January 9, 2013.

Pam was born and raised in Colby, Kansas and went on to earn a B.A. in General Studies from Wichita State University, Wichita, Kansas. She enjoyed a career as a legal assistant in Wichita and Colorado before deciding to spend time at home with her children and actively engage in their schools. Together with her husband, Pam has been a small business owner for 15 years.

Pam’s passion for education began during her experience serving as PTO president and volunteering in the classroom and in sports booster clubs during her children’s years in Douglas County School District. She currently serves on a School Accountability Committee and as a director of Great Choice Douglas County, a non-profit organization supporting school choice.

Previously, Pam served as a director with the Kansas Association of Legal Assistants (KALA) and Vice President of the Colorado Paralegal Association (CPA). She is a graduate of the 2012 Leadership Program of the Rockies (LPR) and, in February 2012, was a recipient of their first “Leadership in Action” Award for her support of the Choice Scholarship Program in Douglas County.

Pam is passionate about school choice. She supports allowing parents to direct education funds to the school that best fits their child’s needs, whether public or private. She is also a supporter of ongoing innovations in charter schools, magnet schools, online schools, schools of innovation, and homeschooling. Pam understands that a well-educated citizenry is vital to Colorado’s economic future and America’s national security. She is dedicated to seeing all Colorado children succeed and understands the critical role that education plays in their success. She is also interested in improving civics education and the wise management of taxpayer dollars.

Pam and her husband of more than 30 years, Leon, have lived near Larkspur for 25 years, where they raised two children. They enjoy celebrating events with their very large families and camping on horseback.

On Wednesday, I was honored to speak at the Winter Meeting of the Republican National Committee about the how important and impactful the 2018 elections could be for America. Below is an excerpt of my remarks.

Let me thank all of you, particularly those I was just chatting with, for your generosity. I have been active in the Republican Party a fairly long time, longer than the younger people here have been alive. And I want to talk to you from the heart. When Ronna and I talked about coming by, I think it was precisely because I had enough distance to look at these things and to be involved on a number of occasions.

First of all, I thought last night’s State of the Union rivaled anything that Ronald Reagan did. It was just astonishingly effective. President Trump found specific individuals whose stories weren’t just important as wonderful human stories, but they each illustrated a part of the American tapestry in the American culture in a way that reminded all of us America is such a wonderful country. I thought it was a very powerful and very effective speech.

I also have to comment on Ronna and the financial report at the end of the year. She hit the ground running with a very simple model that said, “I’m going to work with the president. I’m going to help the president. How big of a check are you going to write?” And she must have repeated that a hundred thousand times over the past year, and she has been very, very effective.

Now, I came tonight in part because I think the Republican National Committee really matters. I’ll tell you candidly, I think without Reince Priebus and without the Republican National Committee, we would not have won in 2016 because we needed all of the extra effort, and we frankly needed Reince desperately holding the party together all through the spring when about a third of the party was certainly eager to commit suicide. And without that kind of effort and without the ground game of the fall, we would have lost. It’s just that simple.

Similarly, I believe the Republican National Committee under Ronna’s leadership is going to be decisive this year. So, I’m going to talk just a couple of minutes about where we’re at because I think it’s really important. And I know those of you who are on the committee are going to take it seriously and take it as a personal responsibility, and those of you who are friends of the committee are even going to take it seriously.

I’m going to start with a very simple model. How many of you noticed [during the State of the Union] that Nancy Pelosi wasn’t happy? Now, I have a ground rule, when the president won, I said to every conservative I would talk to, every time you start to get mad at Donald J. Trump, I want you to close your eyes and think: President Hillary Clinton. Well, I would say to every one of you, every day this year that you do not work for a Republican majority, I want you to think about Speaker Nancy Pelosi. I think this is a very grave threat.

I’m going to be very direct, and I hope it doesn’t get misinterpreted. I do not believe the traditional Republican Party could win this fall. And the fact is we’re at an edge of a wave election, and if we end up with a wave election on their side, you can’t raise enough money to win normal races against that kind of wave.

We saw it in 1994 when we did it. We saw it in 2006 when the Democrats did it. We saw it in 2010 when John Boehner came up with a very simple model: Where are the jobs?

If you start getting that kind of wave building, it’s very hard to be able to keep control. And our margin is not that big. In the great 62-year period of Democratic dominance of the House, they would start elections with 60-seat majorities. If they lost 25 or 30 seats, their margins would shrink, but they were still in control. We’ve never been in control with that size margin.

For us to maintain Speaker Ryan and the House GOP majority in 2018 there are bold things we have to do.

I’m going to draw a very deliberate distinction. Just so you understand this isn’t just some theory — get candidate Trump’s speech at Gettysburg in October of 2016, the president’s inaugural address last year, and the State of the Union you just watched Tuesday. Take those three and read carefully what President Trump says.

He is describing an American party that reaches out to every American, that makes the case that America is an idea worth fighting for. He suggests that we have a model for success: the American model of limited government, lower taxes, less red tape, more entrepreneurship, more take-home pay, more local control, which means more local responsibility, and a foundation of rights that come from our Creator.

You take those three speeches, put them together, and look at them. What does that mean? What would a Trump Republican Party be like? We are not yet there. With Ronna’s leadership and the president’s leadership, we can get there. I think by 2020, we will get there.

I think President Trump will get re-elected almost without regard to what happens this fall. But remember, it’s one thing to spend 2019 and 2020 with Speaker Ryan and a Republican House getting things done. It’s another thing to spend 2019 and 2020 in a life and death struggle against Speaker Pelosi and a Democratic House that will automatically want to impeach the president while having every House Committee launch investigations of the administration. They won’t have any idea what they’re impeaching him for and or what they are investigating for and it won’t matter to them. In the majority, House Democrats will spend two years in hostile assaults on the administration.

You may have seen the Fox and Friends interview of the New York University students who they asked on Monday morning, “What did you think of the president’s State of the Union speech?” And these students said things like it was, “Hateful. It was racial language. I can’t believe he said that.” It didn’t even matter that President Trump hadn’t given the State of the Union Address yet. This is the unthinkingly hostile Left we’re dealing with.

What you saw at the State of the Union was the face of hate. I mean when people sit there, and you explain to them that there’s the lowest black unemployment in history, and they can’t applaud. There’s the lowest Hispanic unemployment in history, and they can’t applaud. You’re looking at people so consumed by their passions they can’t think. Those are the people who will be in charge of the House if they win.

So, these next few months are really important, and here are a couple of very simple principles for a Trump Republican Party as opposed to a traditional Republican Party. Now, a Trump party largely grows out of the Reagan party and out of the 1994 Contract with America majority.

First Principle: Go home and take on everyone. Don’t talk about safe seats, not safe seats, all this bologna. When we won control in 1994, we ran against every Democratic candidate except three.

We beat the chairman of Ways and Means of downtown Chicago. We beat the first Speaker of the House to lose since 1862. We beat the chairman of the Judiciary Committee in the Houston suburbs. No Republican consultant would have recommended running against any of them.

We are in a similar situation this year because every Democrat went out idiotically and voted no on the largest tax cut in your lifetime, and they have to go home and explain that.

One example from the State of the Union : We are not tough enough, we’re not fast enough, we don’t think aggressively enough. Last night, they picked somebody to answer the State of the Union, Congressman Joe Kennedy. He was symbolically perfect standing in front of a broken car because the Democrats can’t fix anything.

We should have been asking Kennedy, “How could you vote against tax cuts and job creation? The Ways and Means Committee has analyzed every congressional district in the country. You can go to the Ways and Means Committee website for your district. In Kennedy’s district a median-income family of four got a $5,800 tax cut. Now we should be all over him. How can he vote to take $5,800 away from a family of four in his district to send it to Washington bureaucrats? We should have used every social media tool so people watching his response were waiting for him to answer for his vote.

Now, he’ll give you a left-wing answer. If you’re one of the families, how many have gone to find families of four and say, “What can you do with $5,800 per year, which is, by the way, $58,000 over 10 years? Do you think it’s better spent by a bureaucrat or you?” I think we should take on every single member of the black caucus. Again, every single district in America, it turns out, has a net tax cut. Every single one of the Democratic members of the Black caucus voted against the tax cut for their own people and could not applaud the lowest Black unemployment in history.

Now, you can’t get much further distance from the traditional Republican consultants. but the truth is, too many Republicans don’t have the nerve to go out to new neighborhoods and new voters. They talk in cost-benefit terms. Well, that’s not going to work if we are serious about growing a stable majority. I lost twice. And if we’d had that cost-benefit attitude toward my district, I’d never have gotten to Congress, and we wouldn’t have taken control in 1994.

We have to have the nerve to go nose-to-nose.

Second, don’t complain about the news media. The news media is a fact. The news media is the offensive wing of the other team. They are not the problem. They are a fact. What we do about them is the problem. So, we have to design a campaign plan, and we have to train our candidates assuming the worst about the news media. Whenever you interact with the news media you should assume you’re going into a war zone. You should plan to take the host head on and challenge their assumptions.

I read the transcripts every Sunday. You would be amazed how many of our folks are too slow, too untrained, and don’t know what they’re talking about. So, they walk in as though George Stephanopoulos is neutral. I mean not only was he the Clinton press secretary, who gave $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation, and we allowed him to chair a presidential debate in 2012. Now, you at least have a minimum rule. Nobody who’s completely on the Left is going to get to chair anything for this party’s good future.

Point One: Compete everywhere.

Point Two: Design strategies that win despite the news media because you overmatch them.

Point Three:We have to have the courage to fight. You have to be prepared. When someone gets up, the junior senator from New York, and says, “You know, if you talk about chain migration, it’s racist.” But we need to say: “You must be losing this debate on the facts so badly that you’re now reduced to scream ‘racism,’ which is, by the way, what you scream about virtually anything, unless of course that’s homophobia or something else.” The Left has no arguments left except to yell nasty names.

And we have to go nose-to-nose with them to knock them down mentally and psychologically. It’s very important for us to understand this is a fight. We are in a cultural civil war with people who despise us. There’s no neutrality in there. And that’s why they dislike Trump so much, because Trump has the nerve to talk about MS-13 because they can’t answer it. The more he is right, the more enraged they are.

If you’re a left-wing Democrat and totally for open borders, you can’t actually go up and say, “Well, I think it’s okay for a few hundred MS-13 folks to come in.” You just can’t. So, then you get furious at Trump because he’s found the angle of attack you can’t defend.

I would say to every candidate: study Trump. Trump is one of the greatest articulators I have ever seen. He understands fighting. He likes to fight, and he is prepared to figure out how to go at you at an angle you can’t defend. And that’s what we have to do for this whole campaign starting now.

The most useful book I have read to better understand this year is Karl Rove’s book on “The Triumph of William McKinley.” That 1896 campaign may sound obscure, but it relates directly to our challenge.

McKinley was faced with the great charismatic Democratic leader, the youngest major party nominee in history at 36 years old, William Jennings Bryan. Bryan is such a great passionate articulator of demagogic populism and was so influential in the Democratic Party for two generations (nominated three times for president) that Elizabeth Warren is his direct emotional descendant.

He literally – and I mean this as a tribute to Bryan – h e imprinted the Democratic Party with a negative, anti-elite, anti-city, anti-modernity kind of populism, a populism of anger. He talks about mankind being crucified on a cross of gold. He says at one point that he wants grass to grow on the streets of the cities. McKinley realizes he’s going to lose the election unless he breaks the heart of Bryan’s argument. McKinley understood in 1896 what Margaret Thatcher said in the 1970’s when she warned: “First you win the argument. Then you win the election.” And so, McKinley created the most thorough educational campaign in American history.

They printed 18 brochures for every American. That’s a scale of organization that’s unimaginable. And Karl, who’s a great professional, really walks you through it. The first part of the book most of it you won’t find all that exciting, because it’s about how he got the nomination – although it’s very useful. But the second half of the book is amazing and is the campaign we need this year.

We need a campaign that is going right at the philosophical basis of the modern Democratic Party. We need a campaign, for example, to say, “How many Americans do you think want to abolish the Medicare trust fund?” That’s actually what’s in the Sanders bill that could create national health care. You know, to the average 65-year-old or 55-year-old say, “Hi, would you like to help Sanders in abolishing the Medicare Trust Fund? All it requires is that you trust politicians.”

You know, you could probably win that argument and keep them on defense all the time. So, I think it’s tremendously important. I think what Ronna is doing is extraordinarily important. She needs your help and every state in the country. I need your help talking to every incumbent and every candidate, and you need to understand, this is where we’re going. This is what we have to accomplish, and my last point is this: 50 percent should be spent on the tax cuts.

I mean literally, 50 percent of our effort should be explaining the tax cuts and their impact at multiple levels. At a cultural level, it puts America back on the road to being an entrepreneurial society. At the large economy level, it’s going to lead to growth – and at a personal level. When I talk about the example of reaching out to everyone, would you like to guess among all the Wal-Mart employees who just got bonuses what percent are African American? What percent are Latino?

Now today, they have no mechanism to say to them: “By the way, that was a Republican idea that just got money in your pocket.” That’s our job. It’s not their fault they don’t know it, and it’s certainly not NBC News’ fault. NBC News is the other team. So, we have to learn, and I would urge all of you to think about this literally. Fifty percent of our effort from now to election day should be very simple. We want you to have money in your pocket, a better job, a greater future, more money in your 401k for retirement. They want all of that money for their bureaucrats and their giveaways. You pick which team you like. You think it’s better to have Washington spend your money, you have a great party: The Democrats. If you think it’s better for you to have the money, you have a great party, the Republicans. The two parties are this far apart.

As RNC members, if you’ll do your job, if you’ll help convince every single candidate and every single incumbent, we’ll change history just the way Trump changed history.

So, when reporters and analysts say, “Well, it’s the first term off-year election. The average losses are X.” My first thought is, “How do you think President Clinton is doing?”

The truth is we are led by somebody who breaks the records. We ought to join in this fall to break the record, and next year if we have won control of the House altogether – if we’ve picked up six or eight Senate seats – President Trump and the Republicans will be able to say, as Ronald Reagan used to say, “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

Newt Gingrich is a Fox News contributor. A Republican, he was speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999. Follow him on Twitter @NewtGingrich. His latest book is “Understanding Trump.”

States Look at Establishing Their Own Health Insurance Mandates

An ambulance is seen in front of University Hospital in Newark, N.J. New Jersey is one of at least nine states that are considering a health-insurance requirement for its residents, after Congress repealed the so-called individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act.PHOTO: KENA BETANCUR/GETTY IMAGES

By

Stephanie Armour

Feb. 3, 2018 7:00 a.m. ET

At least nine states are considering their own versions of a requirement that residents must have health insurance, a move that could accelerate a divide between Democratic states trying to shore up the Affordable Care Act and Republican states intent on tearing it down.

Congressional Republicans in December repealed the so-called individual mandate, a pillar of the ACA, as part of their tax overhaul. That cheered conservatives who say people shouldn’t be forced to buy insurance, but it has now energized liberals who say a mandate is needed to ensure coverage and keep premiums low.

Maryland lawmakers are pursuing a plan to replace the ACA mandate, which requires most people to pay a penalty if they don’t have coverage. California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Minnesota, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington, as well as the District of Columbia, are publicly considering similar ideas.

This push illustrates a shift in the health-care battle from Capitol Hill to the states, igniting a surge of activity that could redefine access and coverage for millions of consumers.

The ACA, also known also as Obamacare, sought to create a uniform minimum floor for health coverage. It established certain benefits that many health plans had to cover and barred insurers from charging higher premiums to people with pre-existing conditions.

Republicans in Congress failed to repeal the law overall, but in addition to erasing the individual mandate, the Trump administration has been using administrative actions to roll back the ACA’s requirements and give states more control.

That is creating a landscape in which blue states pursue initiatives to keep or expand the ACA, while red states take actions to defang the law and put a conservative stamp on health policy.

Coming years could see a growing gulf on issues such as Medicaid benefits, consumer protections, insurer regulations and the availability of cheaper, less-comprehensive health plans, health analysts say.

“The hodgepodge of congressional actions and administrative efforts have really shifted activity to the states on a whole range of health-care issues,” said Larry Levitt, a senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “We’re moving back to when coverage and consumer protections vary tremendously.”

The individual mandate is the latest example and one of the most symbolic. The national repeal takes effect in 2019, an event the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated would result in millions of people dropping or losing coverage.

Republican-led states have welcomed its demise, saying the mandate imposes a financial burden on lower-income people and is a federal overreach.

Some states want to undo even more of the ACA. Idaho has moved to let insurers sell plans without all the benefits required under the ACA. Insurers would also be able to charge higher premiums to people who are sicker or older. It is unclear whether the Trump administration will take action to stop the state.

“This is why conservatives opposed Obamacare—we don’t like one-size-fits-all,” said Andy Roth, vice president for government affairs at the conservative Club for Growth. “We should let states duke it out. If Maryland or Vermont wants to impose heavy regulation on health care, by all means let them do it. I’d be willing to bet health-care costs and quality of care will be better in red states.”

The push carries some risk for Democrats, polls suggest, since the mandate is the least popular part of the ACA. About 45% of Democrats in September thought the national mandate should be kept and 20% supported repeal, according to a poll from the Urban Institute, an economic and social policy research group.

In addition, setting up a system to track individuals’ coverage, and possibly exact penalties through income taxes or other measures, would be a significant undertaking for states, health-policy experts said.

The notion of an individual insurance mandate was first floated in the 1980s by conservatives as a way to get healthy, younger people to buy coverage and offset the costs of older and sicker consumers.

Democrats initially objected. But since the early 2000s, they have embraced the concept and are considering ways to retain it, fearing that repeal would increase premiums and undermine the individual insurance market.

In Connecticut, lawmakers plan to introduce legislation that would impose a coverage mandate of some sort, said state Rep. Sean Scanlon, a Democrat who serves on a health-care working group.

“The federal government has just stalled. They don’t accomplish the basics, and that leaves states with a great opportunity to step up and craft policy,” Mr. Scanlon said.

Maryland lawmakers are set to consider imposing a penalty on people without insurance, and Rhode Island state officials are also discussing the option of retaining a mandate. A bill in Washington state would create a task force to examine an insurance coverage requirement. And Hawaii lawmakers are also examining retaining parts of the ACA, including a possible mandate.

Most of the discussions are still in the nascent stages, but the effect of what could be a patchwork insurance system is unclear. Insurers may be more likely to stay in the ACA exchanges of states with a mandate, because it gives them a more predictable mix of healthy and sick customers.

Similarly, older and sicker people may prefer states with a mandate and other insurance regulations, so it is possible blue states could attract more of them. But that depends on a host of factors, including whether a state expanded Medicaid, the percentage of residents who get health-related tax credits and a state’s potential moves to relax the ACA benefit requirements.